Earth Observatory Blog

Did you know that in the past six weeks six volcanoes in Indonesia erupted? These volcanoes are Semeru, Anak Krakatau, Merapi, Kerinci, Dukono, and Ibu.

These recent eruptions are part of the usual volcanic bustle in Indonesia, impacting mostly the areas close to the volcanoes. While some of these activities were picked up all the way in Singapore, all were reported to aviation authorities.

Issuing Eruption Notifications

The Centre for Volcanology and Geological Hazards Mitigation (CVGHM), the monitoring agency for Indonesian volcanoes, issued a Volcano Observatory Notification for Aviation (VONA) on each eruption. The notification includes a summary of the volcanic activity, the...

How will this affect Singapore? “Low-lying coastal cities and nations, like Singapore, should be very concerned about the extreme melting in Greenland and Antarctica,” said Professor Benjamin Horton, Chair of the Asian School of the Environment and a Principal Investigator at the Earth Observatory of Singapore. “If the ice...

Channel NewsAsia’s documentary titled “Carbon Conundrum” investigates how carbon emissions contribute to rising global temperatures, which lead to rising sea levels and extreme weather events. In the documentary aired on television (channel 106 on Starhub) on 31 March 2020, Assistant Professor Aron Meltzner and his team provided insights on how rising sea levels in the southeast Asian region could impact Singapore.

Using microatolls (circular colonies of coral) the team is able to track changes in the sea level. A study led by Asst. Prof Meltzner found that more than 6,000 years ago when there was no human-driven climate change, there were fluctuations of about 60 centimetres in sea levels in southeast Asia. He...

During the early evening of 28 September 2018, a magnitude-7.5 earthquake struck along the coast of northwestern Sulawesi, Indonesia. This region hosts a famous strike-slip fault system called the Palu-Koro Fault.

Even though this is one of the fastest slipping faults in the world, it has not produced many large earthquakes during historical times. The Palu-Koro Fault was therefore thought to have a high probability of a large and destructive earthquake, and so the occurrence of the 2018 quake in Sulawesi wasn’t very surprising.

However, the landsliding that was triggered by the earthquake turned out to be unexpectedly destructive. Soon after the earthquake, witnesses described entire villages south of Palu City sinking into mud and disappearing, and it was...

Many may still remember the powerful eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991. It was one of the largest eruptions in recent history, and sent volcanic ash even as far as Singapore, over 2,400 kilometres (km) away.

But what many do not know is that the thin layer of volcanic ash that had settled across Singapore could have been more severe. Typhoon Yunya (also known as Typhoon Diding) had struck the Philippines almost at the same time as the Mount Pinatubo eruption.

Previously, scientists had not investigated how the typhoon had affected the amount of ash that fell on Singapore. However, preliminary modelling results carried out by scientists at the Earth Observatory of Singapore (EOS) and Asian...

When the time came for us to choose a place to house the EOS Dynamic Earth Games, the answer was a clear and obvious one – the Science Centre Singapore (SCS).

SCS has an impressive 40-year record of making science fun and accessible to the public. They successfully reach out to and engage more than one million visitors annually.

We, at the Earth Observatory of Singapore (EOS), know just how capable the SCS team is. We have worked with them over the years on various projects and launches (e.g. “Earth: Our Untamed Planet” exhibit currently in SCS, and the film screening of EOS documentary The Ratu River). Most recently, we spent the past six months working closely with SCS and acclaimed Californian science museum, The Exploratorium, on a new earth science exhibition...

When the Earth Observatory of Singapore (EOS) first decided to create educational materials about the earth sciences, all we knew then was that we wanted something extra fun, immersive, and highly interactive. The EOS Dynamic Earth Games that we have now were not yet in our minds.

The search for a team who could bring this to life for us was quite a task. That was until we met BOHO Interactive, a collective of artists and game designers from Australia.

During the planning phase, the BOHO team spent a good amount of time in EOS to learn about the different types of research being done by our scientists. They then shortlisted a few to build the games on. After developing several of these games, they tested the prototypes at different events with different audiences...

The Earth Observatory of Singapore (EOS) collaborated with BOHO Interactive and the Science Centre Singapore to develop seven different games. These fall into three broad categories:

Volcanoes and Typhoons,
Assessing Risk, and
Evacuation.

Volcanoes and Typhoons

The Dynamic Earth Games explain the science behind natural hazards with a strong focus on geology and meteorology. While playing the games, you will learn some of the signs of an impending volcanic eruption and the tools that...

What makes up the exciting memories of my first interaction with science? I recall touching the slimy texture of snails, sniffing ammonia salt (also known as “smelly salt”), and making my sister’s hair stand with a balloon.

For me, science is a journey – a fun-filled adventure that satisfies our curiosity of the universe. Think about it. What makes us enjoy playing soccer, chess, or Candy Crush? Games are fun because they involve elements of competition with others, even ourselves, and some require us to cooperate with one or more people. This sense of competition and camaraderie are essentially what makes us enjoy playing games.

The Dynamic Earth Games, an Earth Observatory of Singapore (EOS) series of board games and card games about natural hazards, use these...

At approximately 9:30pm local time (2:30pm GMT) on the 22nd December 2018, a tsunami struck Indonesia’s Sunda Strait, which lies between the islands of Java and Sumatra, claiming over 430 lives. According to Indonesia’s disaster agency there are at least 1,500 injured, over 120 people still missing, and around 12,000 people have been displaced.

The tsunami occurred during a local holiday for the December solstice, striking a number of popular tourist destinations, including the Tanjung Lesung beach resort in the west of Java. Eyewitness reports indicate there were two separate waves, with the second, larger wave causing the most damage.

The tsunami was caused by a violent eruption of Anak Krakatau (Fig. 1), the "child" of Krakatoa, in the Sunda Strait....